Video of Taliban Execution of Woman Shocks the World

It is difficult for Taliban brutality to shock the world, but it managed to outdo itself, shooting a woman nine times in the back.

By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

First Publish: 7/9/2012, 3:03 PM

It is difficult for Taliban terrorist brutality to shock the world, but it managed to outdo itself with a video of the shooting a woman nine times in the back for alleged adultery, while 150 men cheered.

WARNING: The video below shows violence and is not recommended for viewing by children.

The executed woman was murdered one hour after a self-styled “trial” found her guilty of adultery. Wearing the traditional Muslim burqa, she sat on the ground while her executioner shot her nine times, even after she was dead, to the cheers of 150 men chanting “Allah is great.”

Two Taliban commanders who allegedly had relations with the woman accused her of adultery and faked a court proceeding in order to execute her at a village slightly north of Kabul.

A third Taliban commander continued the “judicial system” and shot and killed the two men.

“We went there to investigate, and we are still looking for people who were involved in this brutal act,” Parwan province governor Abdul Basir Salangi was reported by CNN as saying. Taliban denied any connection with the brutal murder.

The Obama administration and a NATO military official condemned the execution in the strongest of terms.

"The protection of women's rights is critical around the world, but especially in Afghanistan, where such rights were ignored, attacked and eroded under Taliban rule," the American embassy said in a statement.

"Let's be clear, this wasn't justice, this was murder, and an atrocity of unspeakable cruelty," NATO-led International Security Assistance Force commander Gen. John Allen said. “There has been too much progress made by too many brave Afghans, especially on the part of women, for this kind of criminal behavior to be tolerated."

Violence in Afghanistan, which U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared this week is a major NATO ally of the United States, is not exclusive to Muslim terrorists.

"It's really important to not see this exclusively in terms of the Taliban, but this is a set of practices that actually have existed and continue to exist throughout Afghanistan," Christine Fair, of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, told CNN.

One unanswered question that remains on the future of violence and the status of women in Afghanistan is what will happen when direct American influence will diminish with the planned withdrawal of American-led NATO troops by the end of 2014.